Salaries of some teachers in the Akyemansa District in the Eastern Region have been frozen for reasons best known to the Ghana Education Service (GES).

The Daily Heritage understands that about 10 teachers in the district have not received their salaries for the past three months, after they expressed their displeasure about a recent transfer carried out in the district.

One of the teachers, who spoke to the paper on condition of anonymity, said the teachers were threatened that their salaries would be frozen if they did not comply with the transfer directives from the GES directorate in the district.

Checks by the paper revealed that though the teachers have complied and gone to their transferred places, their salaries are yet to hit their accounts.

The source indicated that they were living on borrowed monies from friends and families and did not know when they would get the money to pay their creditors.

“We submitted our documents to the directors sometime last month to show them that we’ve not received our salaries. They told us they will work on it but up till now we’ve not received anything,” the source said.

Transfer issues

Teachers in the district have expressed worry about the procedure used to transfer them to unexpected places.

According to the teachers, they have been transferred to far distances which required the GES to pay them transfer grants.

The transfer grant, the paper understands, is a monetary token given to teachers who are transferred to a far distance in order to support them at their new places.

However, the Ministry of Education has ordered directors of GES not to pay the grants since they could not afford it.

To that effect, the ministry has further ordered the GES not to transfer teachers to far distances unless the teacher applies for the transfer and agrees to bear his or her transport cost.

The source told the DAILY HERITAGE that they initially refused to obey the directives because it was against the ministry’s stance, but later had to go because they were threatened.

According to the source, the transfer was done in the third and fourth week of the new academic year, which the source said, “caused us a lot of discomfort because some of us had renewed our tenancy agreement with our landlords.

“We were not expecting any transfer looking at the time they brought the transfers. Before they brought the transfers, we had a meeting with one of the directors of GES and he told us the transfers won’t be punitive.

“They have done the opposite because the transfer has caused more harm to us because the time they brought it wasn’t favourable,” the source said.

The source added that, “the situation is so alarming that some of the transfers have amounted to demotion with no tangible reasons. For instance, a head teacher has been demoted to a classroom teacher.”

GES officer’s response

One officer who was accused of masterminding the transfer was Mr Stephen Hlordzie, Assistant Director in charge of supervision at the district education office.

In an interview with the DAILY HERITAGE, Mr Hlordzie said “if they [the teachers] have any problem, they should come to the office so that we talk about it rather than going to the media.

“I’m not in the right position to talk about this issue. We no longer pay the transfer grants so they can come to our office if they have any problem,” he told the paper.